Attracting Families to Live Downtown: The Vancouver Model

A great blog post on Planetizen came out earlier this fall on how families will choose to live in downtowns if they are designed for children. As the article points out, the issue of creating family-friendly downtowns is an issue many cities around the world are trying to tackle because  “a neighbourhood that's designed to work for kids works for everyone.” 

Austin's new comprehensive plan incorporates this vision of livable complete communities that work for everyone, as does the City's one-year-old downtown plan. Austin's downtown currently performs poorly for children, as revealed by the paucity of them that live downtown. And the upcoming move of the Austin Children's Museum out of downtown--a huge magnet for families--will only make matters worse.

Vancouver (from our family's last trip there in 2004)

What will it take for Austin to attract more than a paucity of families downtown? The lesson from other North American cities: Big and bold planning and a set of robust implementation tools.

The North American city that has made the most progress in attracting families with children to live downtown is Vancouver.  As a result of strong urban design and planning tools that specifically incorporate the needs of children, Vancouver has been able to attract thousands of children into its downtown urban core.  Vancouver requires 25% of housing units in the downtown area be created for families and has endowed its downtown area with a number of incredible kid-friendly public spaces and great public schools.  In setting forth design guidelines for what makes a high rise development family-friendly, Vancouver goes beyond just requiring multiple bedrooms. Developments covered by the City's family-friendly high density design regulations must include outdoor play areas as well as common rooms for indoor play, and the family units must overlook the outdoor play areas (so parents can whip up dinner while watching their kids run around outdoors). And a percentage of the family units must also be affordable. Families have responded to these smart design and planning policies by moving downtown in droves. 

One of the greatest design elements of the Vancouver family-friendly housing model is the incorporation of two- and three-story townhouses that wrap around the residential high rise towers. This design feature is brilliant because it provides for density as well as a housing typology that is preferred by families with children (including quick access to outdoor spaces). The townhouse wrap design also brings in more light and allows for more residential street front interaction. I am hoping to find more pictures of this design feature to post here.

Next up: Seattle.

Our one-year-old in a downtown Vancouver park back in 2004.